The great Robot race...

Glaucus · 31 Oct 2006 at 20:17

How cool is this, last year the best contestant only lasted 7miles

It's a bit like the x-prize for space, the first to complete the 130mile course wins $2million to help funding.
link to the 20 contestants with 30sec pre race clip of each..

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/team.html

we've seem to be so close to making great robots, but yet they never quite seem to manage creating something useful.

This should be good

Tuesday 31 October 2006, 9pm on BBC Two

We follow 20 robot cars on a remarkable race across the Nevada desert. These cars drive themselves. There are no drivers and no remote controls, they must navigate entirely on their own.

The first time the race was run, the most successful entrant only made it seven miles into the 130 mile course. Will this year's robots do any better? And will any cross the finishing line and claim the two-million-dollar prize?

It's a story of set-backs and crashes, as a variety of teams compete to solve one of the hardest problems in robotics.

penski · 31 Oct 2006 at 20:48

Mad Skillz.

I'll have to record it - I know someone who has worked/is continuing to work on an entry...

*n

qwerty · 31 Oct 2006 at 21:06

Why don't they just put a brick on the accelerator? :confused:

Biohazard · 31 Oct 2006 at 21:09

qwerty said:
Why don't they just put a brick on the accelerator?

corners?

Glaucus · 31 Oct 2006 at 21:25

well i'm dissapointed, theres only 1 team which has ai that learns, the rest just rely on calculations.

Vulcan · 31 Oct 2006 at 21:51

AcidHell2 said:
well i'm dissapointed, theres only 1 team which has ai that learns, the rest just rely on calculations.

Yeah, but isn't that what we bascially do?

Anyway, good program.

Glaucus · 31 Oct 2006 at 21:56

Longbow said:
Yeah, but isn't that what we bascially do?

Anyway, good program.

Yep very good program, yes we calculate but we also learn, the red team I felt where cheating, analysing the track in minute detail and planning the speed. it should def have much more learning AI in them, can't wait to see the urban race, as they will have to use more AI, huge number of obstacles, follow road signs and road markings, going to need more than a few high tech lazers.

glitch · 31 Oct 2006 at 22:24

AcidHell2 said:
Yep very good program, yes we calculate but we also learn, the red team I felt where cheating, analysing the track in minute detail and planning the speed. it should def have much more learning AI in them, can't wait to see the urban race, as they will have to use more AI, huge number of obstacles, follow road signs and road markings, going to need more than a few high tech lazers.

Completely agree.

Unless I was missing something, it seemed like the first Red vehicle had GPS data fed to it which basically drove it point-to-point across pre-mapped terrain that had been scrutinised down to the last inch by the Red Army. So that's pretty pointless if you don't have the time to do this and/or have to take another route - which would seem to be a salient point given that this is destined for military applications.

It was only Stanley that actually seemed to be bringing anything interesting to the table and ultimately I would have thought that team had the only device that could easily be transferred from vehicle to vehicle.

At least that's how it panned out to me. I'm sure there were equally interesting stories from the other teams that successfully navigated the entire course. Shame it was only 50 minutes worth though. Mind you, Bill Nighy's voiceover suited it perfectly so wasn't all bad.

Akira · 31 Oct 2006 at 22:25

They're going to have some opposition to that urban course though, because they certainly won't be allowed to unleash their robots on the general public. You're looking at a huge closed course, it'd be a nightmare for the local people.

glitch · 31 Oct 2006 at 22:44

Judging by some of the driving on display round my area it's already in progress!

Vulcan · 31 Oct 2006 at 22:46

Yeah I do see your point AcidHell2, of course as you mentioned, it may have only been the red team that did that pre planning to the extent they did.

That big yellow military truck obviously had some brain power, after deciding for it's self that it couldn't get through the gap on the test track, until it's 7th attempt

Still, the best team won though in the end.

Glaucus · 31 Oct 2006 at 22:50

Longbow said:
Yeah I do see your point AcidHell2, of course as you mentioned, it may have only been the red team that did that pre planning to the extent they did.

That big yellow military truck obviously had some brain power, after deciding for it's self that it couldn't get through the gap on the test track, until it's 7th attempt

Still, the best team won though in the end.

yep I think it was only the red, they showed another team, all they did was upload the gps cords which took about 30 seconds and they where ready.

The video camera and lazer is what the teams should be using, however they should be using 2 high deff cameras preff color. You could do some really really cool stuff with the software then.